Never settle for a small one, and demand a corner piece with a flower.

They Coulda’ Been Great: November 2013

November highlights via Facebook… (What is this? All answers are HERE.)

November 1

5:09 p.m.

Overheard at a play date…

Six year old: Mom! We need you to open our scooters!

Mother: Excuse me?

Six year old: WE NEED you to open our scooters!

Mother: What is missing from your request?

Six year old: I don’t know! Open our scooters!

Mother: What’s the magic word?

Six year old: DAD!

Exactly.

November 3

12:56 p.m.

Two kids out at friends’ houses and one playing happily by himself. The perfect time to get some cleaning done! So of course, I’m looking at Kate Spade bracelets on Ebay.

5:03 p.m.

Halloween is over – but if a child dropped a Jolly Rancher within a 2-mile radius, my dog will find it.

5:36 p.m.

George: [coming inside after his father went out to tell him it was getting dark and it’s time to come in] MOM! I was just about to do something fun and you RUINED it!

Me: [to Chris] I guess you told him that “Mom” said it was getting too dark for him to be outside? [to George] George – it’s too dark for you to be outside without a grownup.

Chris: People are still outside watching the game. [yes – my neighbors set up a TV and a fire pit]

Me: [to George] WELL, Daddy doesn’t want to watch football outside – so you have to come in now.

George: DAD!?!

Two can play that game.

November 4

7:14 p.m.

I’m obsessed with Paperless Post tonight (yes – looking up possibilities for the Simply Om trunk show). I’ve already found exactly what I need – but I CAN’T STOP looking at all of the pretty, pretty options. Chinese lanterns! What could I possibly do with this? No idea – but look at the pretty, pretty lanterns!

November 5

2:55 p.m.

Eleanor: Pluto used to be a planet, but now it’s a star.

Me: I think Pluto was always a star – we just THOUGHT it was a planet.

Eleanor: No. It USED TO be a planet, but then scientists changed it into a star.

George: EVIL scientists!

Sometimes I think HE’S actually from Pluto…

*Yes – it has been pointed out to me that Pluto is not a star, but a plutoid or something…whatever – there’s a reason I don’t home school.

November 6

11:15 p.m.

When you can’t find your best tweezers. Forty-something world problems…

November 7

4:29 p.m.

“Homework is hard. It makes my brain dizzy.”

Oliver on not wanting to do homework. I think he nailed it.

5:53 p.m.

Either I’m unusually irritable this evening or my children are unusually irritating. Most likely a combination of the two.

November 8

8:46 a.m.

Leaving the house to walk the kids to school and Eleanor just started singing, “I know a song that never ever ends – and this how it goooes!” So this should be fun.

November 9

12:49 p.m.

“Yes – of course it’s okay to scratch your leg… Just not straight down the front of your pants, in public.”

Added to the list of things I’ve actually had to say to people. #motherhood

3:23 p.m.

Oliver won’t let me sing along with Taylor Swift on the radio. But dammit – I’m Feelin’ Twenty-Two. And I’m not letting some 8 year old take that away from me.

9:16 p.m.

Oliver: Mom – keep your eyes peeled!

Me: Will do!

Oliver: And keep your ears peeled.

Me: Ha! You got it.

Oliver: And keep your nose peeled.

Me: Um…sure.

Oliver: And keep your mouth peeled.

Me: …

Oliver: And keep your hair peeled.

Me: Hair?!?

Oliver: Yeah – and keep your HANDS peeled.

Me: OKAY! Let’s just assume that I’ve got it covered.

Wondering if this is somehow related to how I can never find my keys…

November 10

10:31 a.m.

Not doing the daily grateful thing this month – but VERY grateful for a friend’s #1 visitor rule: “you can always be late – but you can never be early.” #lateforbrunch

7:55 p.m.

Fun afternoon at a corn maze! It’s a thing.

7:59 p.m.

Children of the Corn Maze.

November 11

9:24 a.m.

There are two kinds of people in a corn maze. The ones who hit dead end after dead end and say, “I will find my way out of this if it kills me!” and the ones who make jokes and take family pictures as they follow behind. Apparently, I am in the latter group.

1:48 p.m.

This may just be one of my favorite things I’ve ever read. Oliver’s school OT sent me an e-mail telling me that he’s now officially able to tie his shoes (sent a pair in for them to practice a while back):

Good Morning, Kate!

Oliver is wearing his tie-shoes home today!!! Every time for the last 2 weeks he has been successful on the first attempt tying each shoe :)

He got a little teary-eyed about his old sneakers…he said they are very sad. So, we wrote them a little note & you’ll find that note in the Ziploc Bag with the sneakers.

Oliver seemed to feel much better after writing the note & reading it to the sneakers – the sneakers felt better, too :) I am so happy with his commitment to this & the great progress he made…his efforts really paid off!

November 12

4:14 p.m.

George just got off the school bus wearing his fleece pull over PULLED OVER his winter coat. Why? Because it’s “toasty.” Obviously.

November 13

6:19 p.m.

Update on Oliver’s school picture. Just got this e-mail from his SPED teacher:

“Good Evening,

The school pictures are headed home tomorrow, but I wanted to give you a heads up. Oliver took a very nice picture!

Take Care!”

I take it this mean he smiled for the camera (in some fashion at least…) So I’m already thrilled.

9:35 p.m.

You know those “family style” portions they serve at Italian restaurants? Well – left to my own devices? I AM that family.

November 14

12:25 p.m.

While I do appreciate the lack of crowds at the mall during the week, I spend twice as much time finding stores in my efforts to avoid those Dead Sea skin care kiosks. The sales people terrify me. They are relentless and always manage to get me in their clutches. I’ve been complimented, shamed, and everything in between by them, and only manage to escape without purchase by the skin of my teeth. Once I was THISCLOSE to getting into line for Santa when no alternate routes were available. True story.

5:27 p.m.

Picture day miracle.

6:11 p.m.

And just in case anyone who saw my last post thinks I’m acting like some picture day Tiger Mom…just take a look at this comparison between Oliver fake smiling through tears of fury in 2012 and Oliver actually smiling in anticipation of a VERY good bribe in 2013. Can you really blame me for throwing a little confetti?

November 20

4:45 p.m.

Me: Oliver! Does it look like she just got hurt?

Oliver: Yes.

Me: Do you think it’s time for the black crayon to STOP talking to her?

Oliver: Okay

This makes complete sense to us….

5:34 p.m.

Oliver has decided to boycott the “th” sound while reading. Have you ever listened to someone who boycotts “th” read aloud for 20 minutes? Every time he reads the word “the” he mutters “hmph – I don’t want to say ‘the’…” EVERY time.

Unrelated: he spends an equal amount of time making pencils talk to each other as he does writing with them.

Also? I love Oliver.

November 21

12:54 p.m.

Leaving the school book fair, I heard the unmistakable shrieks of 5th or 6th graders playing something like kickball. I then experienced what must have been a visceral sense memory of complete panic. It was only a second but extremely unpleasant. PE PTSD?

6:18 p.m.

Oliver had the hiccups during his 20 minutes of reading aloud to me this evening. Recently, he started doing this thing where he smacks his mouth each time he hiccups. So I got to sit there for 20 minutes listening to him say “I don’t want to say the” every time he read the word “the” and smacking his mouth every time he hiccuped.

Wonder what he’ll add tomorrow… Perhaps a little interpretive dance number every time he turns a page?

6:22 p.m.

I spend 85% of the time I’m with my children feeling like Bob Newhart.

November 22

10:13 a.m.

Rage reading the Sundance catalog with my friend Diane and actually had the opportunity to quote, “it’s not even leathah!” #WorkingGirl

November 24

4:08 p.m.

After a painful month of waiting (due to postponement as a “consequence” of general being-really-bad-ness in school this October), George FINALLY had his laser tag birthday party. And you know what that means… I have to come up with a new empty threat. Also – he’s about to lose a front tooth. The very last baby smile in my house bites the dust – sob.

November 25

8:36 a.m.

“I’m going to let this soak,” is Chris’ code for, “if I leave this dirty pan in the sink long enough, Kate will clean it.” I don’t know why I even bother with the dirty pan standoff…we all know how this ends.

10:35 a.m.

Clearly I am avoiding the ridiculous amount of house cleaning that must be done before my in-laws arrive tomorrow… But George lost that front tooth, and I think commemorating the end of the era of baby teeth smiles in my house on Facebook is far more important that scrubbing toilets. Yes?

2:58 p.m.

George: MOM! My tooth is GONE! I DROPPED it. I LOST it!

Me: Well why were you playing with it? I told you that wasn’t a good idea…

George: [general flailing and unintelligible wailing]

Me: I’m sure we can find it. Where were you when you dropped it?

George: Over here on the couch!

Me: Okay – so you were right here when…

George: …it DROPPED and rolled down there in the back.

Me: So it’s probably just under the cushion [feeling around for it….still looking…] Huh. You were right HERE?

George: Yes.

Me: And you had it in your hand right HERE?

George: No.

Me: Then where were you holding it?

George: In my mouth.

Me: …

George: I was just “pretending.”

Remember how I said my kids make me feel like Bob Newhart? This was one of our “I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl,” moments.

5:49 p.m.

Eleanor: Mom, how do you spell the letter A?

Me: The letter A?!?

George: Oh that’s EASY! Wait – do you mean in lowercase?

I walked away. Obviously, George had that one covered.

7:39 p.m.

Eleanor: [reading over my shoulder as I type]: “…entertained me for whores.”

What I actually typed: “…entertained me for hours.”

It’s like non-stop tonight. I need run mics through our house and just hit “record.”

November 30

3:48 p.m.

At Safeway…

Oliver: [coming out of the restroom] Mom! I need your help.

Me: With what?

Oliver: Finding the Mysterious Burglar.

Ah – shopping with Oliver… Epilogue: it turned out that I AM the Mysterious Burglar.

Also – going to the store for ice cream and wine is a thing, right?

6:07 p.m.

Traditional day-after-Thanksgiving “kids’ tree” decorating party. The real – I mean MY – tree decorating party will take place in a couple of weeks while THEY are at school. That is, if several hours alone, tying a thousand ornament ribbons and swearing over lights that short out counts as a party…I CAN’T WAIT! And yes – I did notice the FOUR Hello Kitty ornaments arranged above Eleanor’s head. There is a reason they aren’t invited to my party.

8:45 p.m.

Eleanor: [literally CRAWLING up the stairs] MOM! I’m tired. Can I just go to bed without brushing my teeth?

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Kate Coveny Hood

Hi! I'm Kate, a mother of three who wages a daily battle against wrinkles, dust, a lack of personal time and the constant arrows that having a special needs child shoots directly into one’s heart. I first hit publish on The Big Piece of Cake in 2008 when I planned to write "a humor blog." Since then I've lost any semblance of focus. Sometimes I say interesting things...and sometimes I just say things. Visit me here for varying levels of insight and over sharing.